Monster Paradise

“Please sit down,” Buried Heaven invited, before taking his place at the head of the table. Lin Huang and the other three resumed their seats as well.

“I assume all of you are acquainted with each other?”

Seeing that they all nodded, Buried Heaven continued, “Then let’s talk business.”

“All of you should have already gone through the information sent to you on the known facts about the Great Heaven Territory, as well as some precautions that you need to take note of, so I won’t waste time repeating it.

“Although your official mission in the Great Heaven Territory this time is to retrieve both the inheritance and the secret treasures, in essence, it’s a test of survival. The real mission is for you to return alive. After all, the Great Heaven Territory is extensive; furthermore, nobody knows where the inheritance and the secret treasures are hidden. Whether you manage to retrieve them or not will depend greatly on luck.

“You will be randomly teleported into the Great Heaven Territory. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll encounter other participants, but we can’t entirely rule out the possibility either. There are 300 people taking part in the hunt this time. Most of them are geniuses on the Virtual God Leaderboard; there’s also a handful of supreme geniuses who have been secretly trained by the major organizations. We shouldn’t underestimate them. If you do run into any of them, please be careful.”

At this, Fallen Star and the others could not help glancing in Lin Huang’s direction.

“As the teleportation is random, the chances of you being teleported to areas not on the map are fairly high. If you come across some unknown tribes or species, don’t attack impulsively…”

Buried Heaven spent a few minutes more emphasizing several other points, before checking the time and standing up.

“It’s almost time. I’ll take you over there.”

He shook his sleeve as he spoke and a little green thumb-sized snake flew out of it, landing on the meeting table.

Ling Huang was given no chance to react. All he had time to notice was that the little snake opened its mouth slightly before it swallowed him up completely—he was helpless to do anything about it.

If one were watching from the sidelines, one would be able to observe Lin Huang and his three companions shrinking rapidly as soon as the little snake opened its mouth. They turned into four tiny specks and were swallowed up.

Once the little black snake had devoured Lin Huang and his companions, it turned and returned to Buried Heaven’s sleeve, quick as a flash.¹

The next second, Buried Heaven abruptly vanished from the meeting room.

Lin Huang felt a little woozy. After a brief moment of darkness, he felt overcome by another round of dizziness.

Once he recovered his balance enough to stand properly and come to his senses, he realized that he was suspended in a starry sky.

A brawny bruiser of a man, about three meters in height, was standing next to him. The man’s head was shiny and completely bald; however, he had a thick beard and was heavily muscled.

Lin Huang was startled for a moment before realizing that this was how Buried Heaven looked like in his videos online. This seemed to have been his public persona in the outside world all the while.

Fallen Star and the other two members of the group were here as well. However, they did not seem at all surprised at Buried Heaven’s appearance.

“Buried Heaven, it looks like you’ve been pretty free lately. You’ve even got the time to bring participants to the Great Heaven Territory’s trial,” a voice called suddenly from not too far away.

Only then did Lin Huang notice that their team was not the only one in this space.

There were at least 20 teams around. The person who had hailed Buried Heaven was from the team with the most people—a total of 13 members.

Lin Huang vaguely sensed that this individual seemed to have abilities on par with Buried Heaven, and, like Buried Heaven, was also a leader.

However, this same individual was very handsome. Clad in full golden armor that shone from head to toe, his gaze was coolly arrogant. Lin Huang could not help but mock him secretly.

‘Does he think he’s Gilgamesh¹?’

“You really do talk a lot of nonsense, King Kong,” Buried Heaven responded expressionlessly from where he was standing to the side.

Lin Huang’s pupils contracted a little when he heard the name King Kong. Although the man’s name was the same as the gorilla in the famous movie, this was not what Lin Huang was thinking about.

In the documents that Bloody had given him, there were mentions of this particular individual.

Like Buried Heaven, King Kong was one of the few peak heavenly god-level powerhouses in the God Territory who were closest to becoming Lords.

Despite his name, King Kong was not a combat cultivator specializing in melee weapons—rather, he was a genuine sword cultivator.

Lin Huang recalled very clearly that the organization King Kong belonged to was called God Capital. It was a grade-7 organization founded by a pureblood Protoss Lord.

King Kong was an elder in God Capital, a position that was on par with the few half-step Lords in the organization.

Clearly, this time, exploring the secret zone was important to God Capital as well.

“Sword and saber are irreconcilable. As a sword cultivator, Great Heaven always treated me as his most powerful opponent. It makes perfect sense that I’m here. You though, you’re a combat cultivator, so why are you here looking for trouble?”

“I’ll come as I please, what are you going to do about it?” Buried Heaven did not bother rising to the bait despite King Kong’s needling.

“Hey, there’s a new face on your team.” King Kong swept a glance over Buried Heaven’s group, his gaze stopping on Lin Huang, “He’s bundled up securely enough already, do you still need to cast a shield layer around him, brat? All this mystery—don’t tell me he’s Death Sickle’s secret weapon?”

Lin Huang had a shock when he heard this. Only now was he aware that Buried Heaven had secretly cast a layer of protection over him to prevent him from being detected by the Heavenly Gods. Even King Kong had not been able to discover who Lin Huang really was.

“I added a shield to prevent people like yourself from detecting him as and when you please,” Buried Heaven retorted, not mincing words.

“Your straightforward character is what I like about you.” King Kong did not seem to take offense to this at all. Instead, he said, grinning, “I think we would become great partners if you joined God Capital. We wouldn’t have any opponents below Lord level. I don’t know what’s so good about Death Sickle when there aren’t any Lords in the organization…”

“If you want me to join God Capital, that’s fine by me. I’ll be more than happy to take your place once you die,” Buried Heaven interrupted King Kong, scoring a point verbally. This was not the first time King Kong had annoyed him with similar invitations.

“Hehe, I certainly don’t want to die. Why don’t you help me kill off one of God Capital’s elders? You can join and take over his position…” King Kong’s brazen suggestion about killing one of his own organization’s elders in front of so many people shocked even the 12 God Capital participants behind him.

‘What an insane bastard!’ Lin Huang mentally labeled King Kong.

The conversation between the pair came to an abrupt end very quickly, thanks to Buried Heaven ignoring King Kong. The entire space finally settled back into its hitherto quiet state.

More and more organizations showed up as the time for the opening of the Great Heaven Territory drew nearer.

Lin Huang noticed that the few teams with a larger quota were grade-7 organizations guarded by Lords. Excluding the leaders, there were more than ten participants per team.

Almost all the other teams had less than five members. Only two teams had five members, while seven other teams, Death Sickle included, had four members. Most of the rest were small teams of two or three people; there were some ten teams that only had one participant each.

Clearly, the Great Heaven Territory’s quota for the trial was not so easily obtained.

Everyone continued waiting; it was soon nine in the morning.

Precisely on the stroke of nine, an austere golden metal gate suddenly materialized out of thin air…